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BlackBerry unveils Classic smartphone with familiar features

BlackBerry launched its Classic smartphone Wednesday with a focus on loyal business users and enterprise security but the once iconic Waterloo device maker has also been busy courting the wireless giants key to the phone’s success.

“Carriers were the missing part of the equation for us a year ago,” chief executive John Chen said at the launch in Manhattan’s financial district. “It took us a year to re-establish those links (and) nearly all major carriers around the world are starting to engage with us.

Raju Mudhar reviews the new BlackBerry Classic.

“The good news is that the conversation has changed about BlackBerry” said the former Sybase Inc. CEO brought on board 13 months ago to turn BlackBerry around.

He added in an interview with Bloomberg TV that BlackBerry would welcome a relationship with U.S. carrier T-Mobile after a spat that had its roots in its perceived lack of success in selling BlackBerry handsets.

AT&T said it will be offering the Classic on its full LTE network, noting that it was the first U.S. carrier to offer a BlackBerry in the U.S. back in 1999. Verizon said it will carry the device beginning in early 2015, while BlackBerry said the Classic will be available from Canadian carriers Bell, Rogers and Telus.

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BlackBerry said North American customers can also purchase the device online through Amazon.com and BlackBerry.com.

“Typically, the carrier stores offer at least one BlackBerry and the Passport has been sold out for weeks,” Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the Enderle Group, said in an email.

“You’d certainly argue that if they were going to carry one, the Classic likely would be the best bet because it addresses the needs of the current installed base.

“The Classic is really the phone BlackBerry should have led with because it is closest to what current BlackBerry users actually wanted,” he said. “Had they come up with this earlier, they likely could have held a substantially larger portion of their base than they did.”

But analysts noted that BlackBerry has been shifting to more of a software model and as such phones are less critical to its future.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen introduces the BlackBerry Classic, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014, in New York. Reaching back to the heyday of the “CrackBerry” is a conscious decision by Chen to drag BlackBerry users, who have clung to their old and worn BlackBerry Bold and Curve models, into the next generation of the device. (Bebeto Matthews / The Associated Press)

“It’s going to be a niche product based around enterprise, based around security and pockets of the world where there are still strengths. The future of this company is not the hardware,” said BGC’s Colin Gillis.

Chen told the New York audience that the Classic is a response to requests from some of its most steadfast customers including leaders of Fortune 500 companies.

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“A lot of them pulled out their BlackBerry . . . and told me ‘Don’t mess around with this thing. Don’t mess around with the keyboard, don’t mess around with the track pad.’ ”

The Classic looks and functions like an updated version of the Bold 9900, which became the company’s bestselling device when it was released in 2011.

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